


a trace inside your face (of a miracle)

by orphan_account



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arthur-centric, Insecure!Arthur, M/M, Romance, Slash, ansty romance, emo!Arthur, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin and Arthur have been together for a long time and want to adopt a child. In the midst of this, life is a bitch, Arthur is a little insecure (read: emo) and Merlin is too kind. Or maybe just in love. (+4k)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a trace inside your face (of a miracle)

**Author's Note:**

> My intention was writing for Paperlegends. Of course this resulted in 4k of a standalone oneshot that could’ve been 4k of my Paperlegends. Cheers. I like the concept but feel that its execution is a bit wonky. Dunno. The one thing about this I like is insecure!Arthur, though I hope he’s not too OOC. Ugh, whatever. Read, and have fun, or don’t. I don’t know what to think of this. Maybe some of you will find something in it. (Also, yeah, 2nd person POV worked really well for my writing style in here. Idk why, but it was nice to write in a rather relaxed manner that did not, for once, make me want to tear my hair out.)
> 
> P.S. Title inspired by Vertical Horizon.

He comes home late that night. When you hear the key turn in the lock, your eyes flutter open and you gaze at the glare of the alarm clock, digits a red smear in the darkness. With each blink, sleep gives way to clearer eyesight. After a while, it reads: 00:17 am. The sounds from the hallway reach your right ear; the left is pressed into the pillow, along with half of your face. They are dimmed, and you are unsure if he is trying to be quiet for your sake or if it is just your sleep-addled mind that is too slow to process the noise. You stare at the alarm clock until your right eye burns, which forces you to blink.

The shuffling grows incrementally louder, signalling that he is moving from the hallway into the living room. There is a click, then, and you redirect your gaze from 00:18 am to the narrow stripe of light that filters in through the door crack, a grey orange or fawn stretching out over the white wood of the wardrobe door. You become more conscious with each moment that passes; as you wake slowly, your hands curl into the bed sheet, fisting it loosely. As a child, you often dreamed of floating up from your bed in your sleep, or falling down bottomless abysses. You never slept with one of your legs or hands hanging out of the bed frame, afraid the monster underneath your bed would snatch the limb away. It was the sense of disappearing, disintegrating, that frightened you, and it does, still. You lie perfectly motionless on the bed, and you listen, passively, to Merlin moving around the living room—the rustle of clothing being thrown over the armrest of a chair (it is late and Merlin is tired—a combination of deadly sloppiness); the jingle of the keys that follows (you will sit down on them tomorrow morning, drinking your coffee and wondering what is digging into your butt cheek); two thuds for a pair of shoes thrown carelessly onto the floor (if you are lucky, you will, for once, not stumble over them on your way out).

The noises of routine wash over you soothingly, tangible relief easing out the ridiculously tightened muscles in your shoulders and neck. You groan soundlessly into the pillow when you realise that you will wake up in a bare five hours with a stiff neck and an aching back that will torture you the entire day. You do not tell Merlin this, but there is a curious connection to a lack of Merlin at night and your messy back by day. Tomorrow, after lunch, your calendar will have a small blue x marking the day at the bottom left corner; another day that you spent the majority of the night without Merlin by your side and the entire next day with a complaining back.

Merlin’s steps recede, you realise dimly, back into the hallway. The silence of night is disturbed by the ugly creak your bathroom door makes as it opens even just the slightest amount. Merlin’s peeing is obscenely loud in the quiet flat, and it makes you smile, the minute pull of your cheek shifting against the pillow, filling your left ear with the dull crinkle of fabric. It fades into an unconscious grimace when you realise that the pillow underneath your mouth is wet; you must have drooled on it in your sleep. You lie there, lazily contemplating whether you should just go back to sleep or wait for Merlin. Either idea is sorely tempting, but it is not your own decision to make. You move your head away from the small pool of drool and just as you smush your face even further into a safer area of the pillow—Merlin always teases you, saying he never knew you of your suicidal tendencies, what with your veritable attempts at self-suffocation—the absence of sound makes you still. 

There is no squeak of an opened fridge; you know that, before Merlin comes to bed, he needs something in his stomach. Usually, there would be a pervasive crinkling sound of a sandwich being unwrapped from aluminium foil as Merlin would make his way towards your bedroom. Or a fork scratching over the plate of cold leftover pasta gorgonzola. Other times, you would hear it directly beside you on the other side of the bed—usually, on bad days, the pop of whatever ice cream tub Merlin would find in the freezer. He always eats in bed, and you always have to listen to him munch or slurp (like a Neanderthal, really) while his foot would sneak under your blanket and rub against yours, a cold shock of clammy skin. Today, there is no such sound, just its curious absence. It makes you still, raise your head slightly so both of your ears are free to listen. Merlin’s footsteps grow louder, which means he is crossing the living room, walking into the direction of your bedroom—but he does not come _into_ the bedroom. He is still in the living room, you realise, in the middle of it, at the dining table, because the sound of one of the chairs being scraped back over the floor sends a shiver down your spine. You frown into the darkness, eyes fixed on the stripe of light on the wardrobe, and listen intently. Why would Merlin sit down at the dining table without having gotten anything from the kitchen first? Why would he sit down at all, usually he eats in bed, and—

And it hits you, then, with the force of a painful blow. This, you think, is what it must be like to run face-first into a glass door; no warning, just the sudden, sharp crash, your skin stinging with pain all over. The realisation tears a hole in the silence, lets the noise in; the entire world around you is suddenly underwater, pressure , so _loud_ , everywhere—it roars in your ears, shocks your pulse into a high frenzy that thuds uncomfortably in your fingertips. Your stomach feels suddenly foul with something nasty tugging at the edges, sour and bitter. You blink stupidly into the darkness, and only now you notice, panicking, that you are lying on the wrong side of the bed, on _Merlin’s_ side. Shame blooms thickly in your chest, makes it tighten and your palms sweat as you move, as quietly as possible, over to your side of the bed and try to arrange yourself so it would seem as though you had slept on your own side the entire time. Your pillow is cold against your cheek from not being used that night, and though it is uncomfortable you dare not move an inch.

Of course. Bloody _of course_. How could you possibly have forgotten this? February 21st, 07:30 pm at the Avalon Research of Magic Institute—Merlin Emrys’ first open lecture about _the decline of magic-born users in 1400 and its implicit connections to the uprise of Albion’s aristocratic regency, including, but not limited to, the Le Fay chronicles_. You remember the exact wording from Merlin’s invitation card because you have been reading it twice a day, sometimes three times, for months now (Merlin doesn’t know, of course), proud of Merlin’s research finally having come to an end after six hard years of self-doubt and bone-crushing labour, resulting in a first degree from CU. You remember highlighting the date and time three months before in your calendar and declining and re-scheduling private as well as professional matters so you would be able to attend tonight, because it was so important to Merlin, and to you, too. You also remember your father’s hard eyes and unimpressed voice as he told you, last noon, that your presence would be required at that day’s after-work meeting, as there was a crucial misunderstanding in the Bayard-file that Uther entrusted no one else to handle but you. You remember arguing heatedly with your father until he unceremoniously threatened to fire you, reminding you of the fact that adoption agencies did not look kindly upon unemployed applicants whose spouses had only held a job at university for a couple insignificant months. You remember caving immediately, because right. _Right_.

You remember calling Merlin, telling him that you couldn’t make it. You remember Merlin’s voice, distant, softly assenting, because what else could he do? You assent to Uther, and Merlin assents to you—it is routine. It is sickening, necessary routine, because until you have the money together to pay off the flat and finance three people—Merlin, you, and, hopefully, soon a child—you are bound to Uther. After a long, exhausting fight, Merlin had grudgingly agreed to use his part-time job to pay for his tuition fees, food and utilities. Even then, Merlin still has to pay years upon years for his doctorate.

You are bound to Uther for the time being, and being bound to Uther means yielding, without compromise.

All these thoughts crash upon you, and now you are truly awake. You lie in the bed, muscles stiff and rigid, and imagine Merlin sitting at the dining table, reading your note in the dim light of the standard lamp from the corner. Again. You must have written three of them this month already, overusing the words _sorry_ and _work_ and _money_ and _apologise_ until they have lost their meaning. In a flash of intense self-loathing that makes your left leg tremble, you see Uther in yourself. You are your father all over again—or, as Merlin likes to say, you see an emotionally-constipated bastard that roars the loudest in the office and speaks like a mouse between the sheets. And the worst is that it is true, all of it is true—in between all the excuses, explanations and apologies on paper, how often have you written _I love you_? Their absence does not make it any less true—Merlin’s presence in your life is equal to the presence of love in your life; it is the only truth you have ever known, the only self-evident truth, works like mathematical reasoning—and yet, yet, yet. How often have you articulated those apologies in actual, spoken words? You may be unobservant at times, that much is true, but you are never unobservant when Merlin’s eyes hold that certain shade of blankness, when his mouth, made to smile, is instead flattened in a bland, unimpressed line. It is what you have seen yesterday after you called him, told him you couldn’t make it. It is what you have seen over the last months, both of you coming home later and later at night, Merlin usually returning from the library, finishing up his thesis—and you, returning from the office or some other social function Uther forced you to attend in the midst of your insane almost fifty-five hour work week. It is what you see now, his tired eyes reading your words, disappointment and bitterness on his face. The idea that in Merlin’s chest there may bloom a wish, one that would make Merlin long for someone who would finally choose love over duty and treat him the way he deserved, the idea of it—it repulses you as much as it humbles you, because Merlin does deserve someone better. The dinner you have cooked after coming home at 09:40 that night, Merlin’s favourite— _parmigiana di melanzane_ , which has taken you over an hour—on a plate beside the note does not count. It is cold by now. It does not count.

It seems after an eternity that the noise resumes. You are an unmoving mess consumed by ghosts that will not leave you, and you feel fear rise sickly in your chest, a heavy weight, with every step Merlin takes towards your bedroom. _Your_ bedroom?, you think, a little hysterically. It ought to be Merlin’s bedroom, really. You have no place here. You are an intruder. You are an impostor. You are an abortive version of who you should have been, someone smarter, braver, more ruthless and more caring—someone better. Someone that would make the look on Uther’s face soft, proud and affectionate. Someone that would tell Merlin at least twice a week that he loved him—would cook him things more often, would not constantly complain about the mess Merlin left everywhere, because the mess really was secondary to the fire of his fingertips on your stomach, the softness of the skin on the inside of his elbow. Someone that would have come to Merlin’s first lecture, that would openly, proudly say _this is my husband and I love him_ —someone that would not hide all these terrifyingly tender and fragile feelings behind soft looks when no one is looking.

The storm inside you dies down a little, your concentration zeroing in on each of Merlin’s movements as he slips in through the door. You are acutely aware of his presence, and it only heightens your sense of self-loathing, because you are not enough, you are just never, never enough, no matter what you do. You feel like a pervert, feel obscene, as your eyes get unerringly caught on Merlin’s reflection in the wardrobe’s mirror in front of you. Merlin has switched on his bedside lamp, which wraps his body in a fascinating play of angles and shadow and light. You can only see his back in the mirror, and you feel as though you are not allowed to watch—you have disappointed him, he should not love you, and you certainly do not deserve to love him. Yet, your eyes are caught, fixated on the way Merlin’s elbows move slightly, your ears burning with the sounds of buttons being undone. The shirt falls open then, to Merlin’s sides, and Merlin stretches his back and tugs it down his shoulders, lets it fall carelessly to the floor. He grips the simple black shirt by the back of the neck and pulls it over his head, revealing his back and narrow waist, the broad expanse of his shoulders, the long line of his neck, half-illuminated by the light, half-dunked in shadow. As Merlin’s hands wander down to the belt you snap your eyes shut. To this point, and no farther. You have already seen more than you deserve. You try hard to calm yourself down, to somehow banish the immaterial monsters inside your heart somewhere that does not make your body shake. You feel humiliated—it reminds you of the fights you would get yourself in at school, a foolish attempt to make your father care; you always preferred blood and physical ache against Uther’s domestic silence that has always felt much more violent. This feels violent, too, in a way, this silence, damages more loudly than words ever could. It is shame—hot like the plain of a blister, makes your skin tight and itch—shame for not being who you ought to be, shame for who you are instead. Shame for disappointing Merlin, shame for being so selfish to still wish he would remain with you. Shame for striving to be better, yet never managing.

The bed dips down behind you, and your eyes snap open again, find Merlin’s reflection in the mirror. He is sitting on the bed, head tilted to the side, looking at something. You cannot see what he is doing, but you hear it, when his hand moves—it slides over the bed sheet, scratches a little when Merlin’s fingernails catch in the fabric. Then it stills, somewhere, and you wait, breathless, to see what happens. Merlin is still looking down, and after endless seconds, his face, before so expressionless, shifts into something fond and soft. You can see it in the way the corner of his mouth curls up at the side, just slightly but _there_. The moment is gone when Merlin leans forward to shut off the light, leaving you staring at a dark room, still hyper-aware of him behind you. How you are supposed to fall asleep like this, with all these things inside, you don’t know.

Again, Merlin answers the question you never asked.

He seems to disregard his own blanket entirely in favour for shuffling close to you and pulling up your blanket so he can slide inside, fitting his body against your own. His chest against your back, your arse pressed against his soft lap and thighs, his legs folded in behind your knees. His feet are cold against yours, and if he notices that your blanket is still slightly cool from not being used, not yet warmed with your body heat, he does not say anything about it. His arm slides under yours and settles around your waist, his palm resting flat on your belly. You can feel his nose dig into the back of your head, his mouth breathe hot and wet just under your hairline, raising the short hair there in a pleasant prickle. You lie together in utter silence for a few moments, and you try hard not to think too much about what is happening. The mere presence of his body, the proof of his existence warm and alive so close to you is enough to assuage the demons inside, giving them whatever they need so they go to rest for this night. Your body feeds from Merlin’s—feasts on it like it’s starving, drinks from it like it’s thirsty, heals from it like it’s ill. The warm, hard line of him pressed up so close to you alleviates the shuddering of your legs, and the way the insteps of his feet rub against the arches of yours makes the hardness in your stomach soften a little. As he does this, his toe nails catch slightly on the sensitive skin of the back of your feet, tickling, and you jerk against him, a snort escaping your nose.

“Hey,” you protest roughly and, being the idiot that you are, try to wriggle away a bit. You may be feeling truly contrite and like the biggest waste on earth right now, but you despise, absolutely _despise_ , being tickled.

“Hey,” he mimicks back, the exhale of the word brushing against your ear. His arm tightens around your middle warningly, pulls your body back against his, making escape impossible. He does stop rubbing his feet against yours, though. “Everything okay?”

You close your eyes. This is Merlin, caring too much as he always does.

“I’m fine,” you say, because even if you pulled a Boromir and had three arrows sticking from your chest, you would still be fine. You always are. “Except for some idiot waking me up in the middle of night, I guess,” you say, because this is you, speaking in opposites as you always do.

“What a bastard, that one.” The fingers on your belly begin moving a bit, stroking unhurried circles, back and forth, back and forth.

“He is,” you agree. It is easier to say these things in the middle of the night. But you’re still not man enough to say it with your eyes open, so you close them. Your throat closes up and your stomach churns. Back and forth, back and forth. The ghosts do not return, but they are sitting at the edges of your perception, whispering to you. Your voice catches a little, goes lower, rougher. “In fact, he’s so stupid some people have begun to wonder why he still hasn’t left.”

The fingers on your belly stop for a moment, before they resume their rhythmic stroking. Merlin places a tiny, soft butterfly kiss against the side of your neck. “It’s good that stupidity is relative, then.”

“Is it?” you ask, and Merlin only hums against your skin.

Silence ensues, befitting the time of the night. You have calmed down significantly. It makes you wonder, sometimes, at how it is possible that the mere presence of another person functions as a better antidote to infections of self-worth than years of therapy. Whether it is that way for other people, you can’t tell, but it is that way with you and Merlin. He has always been the exception; you have always felt this pull towards him, something intense and inexplicable that got you like no one, nothing else ever did. He incenses you faster than a wildfire could, soothes you more effectively than any medicine or treatment. 

And breaks you down quicker than any look of your father.

“I’m sorry,” you say, above a breath. Perhaps if you speak quietly enough, Merlin will not hear it. “If you want to leave—”

“No one is leaving,” Merlin interrupts you right away and shuffles closer still until there is no difference between your bodies anymore—when his fingers find yours, his right hand reaching for your left lying on your stomach, cramped and uncomfortable, your skin melts together. This is another thing you would never tell him; for how much you love to be inside him, how much you love for him to be inside you—his fingers filling in the gaps of your hand, intertwining with your own, closing over your knuckles and pressing your palms together, creating a whole of two halves: _that_ is what sends your heartbeat racing, what steals your breath. 

“But I should’ve been—”

He cuts you off by biting none too gently into your neck, teeth pressing down hard enough to hurt. “You should’ve been doing precisely what you did tonight,” he says. “Making sure no one can get us for any bullshit. It’s taken long enough for them to accept our application as it is. You did the right thing. Stop worrying so much, you old fusspot.”

You exhale shakily and close your eyes against the burn. You tilt your head to the side to bury it in the pillow in an attempt to hide from everything, because even the darkness of the night seems to intrusive, too oppressive right now. Your hand tightens reflexively around Merlin’s, fingers pressing down hard on the back of his hand. He doesn’t let go. He doesn’t let go even as the shiver returns to your body, expands from within your chest and shudders through your limbs. He holds you through it, holds you through the manifestations of your worthlessness, holds your worthlessness itself. There is no one else that will ever see you like this, and in the morning, you will not speak of it. You will taunt and tease and banter, and the remotest acknowledgement of what is happening here, right now, will perhaps be you making time to kiss each of his knuckles before you leave for work, or, if he’s still asleep after you wake up, it will be you watching and marvelling at the way his eyelashes flutter in his sleep and brushing strands of hair from his forehead with the back of your hand.

“He is the biggest idiot I’ve ever met,” you say, voice cracking, overcome with emotion, filled to the brim with wonder and gratefulness. You hold his hand so tightly it must hurt.

Merlin buries his face in your hair, holds it there, unmoving, for a few silent moments. Then he says, “That’s only because he’s got a clotpole by his side who falls asleep drooling on his pillow.” 

He follows the words with a brush of his lips against the soft place behind your ear. Breathing against it, he murmurs, “I don’t want anyone else drooling on my pillow, Arthur. Just you—as emotionally-constipated as you are.”

It makes you laugh, then, and you allow your hold on his hand to loosen significantly. He squeezes your hand with his, once, a gentle reassurance, before he pulls it back ever so slightly. He keeps your other fingers intertwined, but his thumb leaves its embrace around yours, travels down until it reaches the inside of your wrist, where it rubs soothingly. The gnawed, short fingernail finds the centre between both balls of your hand before it traces along the arch of the one leading to your thumb. Initially only the first knuckle bumps against your finger, but then you lay the inside of your finger over the outside of his, drag your thumb down the rough skin on the top of both knuckles. It climbs over his fingernail and the hill of his thumb, before the pad of your thumb meets his in an intimate kiss. Your breath falters as he swirls the flat of his thumb over yours, and it takes you a while to come back to the moment, to remember his words.

Right. Something about pillows and saliva.

“You’re so gross,” you say, because it seems somewhat sensible. You try for affronted and it comes out ridiculously affectionate and fond, in between a chuckle. You can’t help it, and you don’t want to; out of nowhere, you remember his words—you’re a mouse between the sheets all right now, trying to hide the tiny, hesitant smile on your face by biting on the inside of your lip, even though it’s dark and he can’t see it.

He’s got it right; _that’s me_ , you think.

Merlin smiles against your skin as he hears your laugh, and finally lets go of your hand to lay his own over your chest, palm flat over it, feeling out your heartbeat, pulsing in a calm, steady rhythm, now soothed. He shakes his head, making his nose rub against the back of your head.

“Go to sleep, Pratdragon,” he says, making you laugh yet again, and—yeah. Yeah. This is him.

And you love him.

For now, there is nothing else.


End file.
